


Okay.

by itsOzzie



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Not Canon Compliant, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25254280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsOzzie/pseuds/itsOzzie
Summary: This is largely self-indulgent so don't be too mad if it's a bit OOC...please. The Avalance is minor, Ray and Gary are only mentioned. There's also a one-time mention of cancer and blood. Hope you stick around despite that.
Relationships: Nora Darhk/Mona Wu, Sara Lance/Ava Sharpe
Kudos: 12





	Okay.

**Author's Note:**

> This is largely self-indulgent so don't be too mad if it's a bit OOC...please. The Avalance is minor, Ray and Gary are only mentioned. There's also a one-time mention of cancer and blood. Hope you stick around despite that.

Nora didn’t remember much of the previous night. She had remembered it had been book club with Mona, Sara, and Ava, just like any of their other meetings. The meeting was at Mona’s apartment, as usual as well, and she remembered the book they intended to discuss because she’d actually read it for once, and so did Mona, but Sara and Ava had completely forgotten. Understandable, as they were practically parenting the Legends as it were. Her lack of remembering didn’t come from the wine they always had at the meetings, as she hadn’t had much of an appetite. Rather, she found herself fighting to keep her eyes open despite being excited to be with them. That was what she recalled the details of.

There was a light glaze of sweat on her forehead that created a warmth that had felt like a blanket. With that in mind, it was impossible not to feel drowsy. Lulled off to sleep by the chatter of her found family and the clinking of glasses around, she felt properly content for the first time in what was probably years.

That was not the same as when she awoke from an incoherent nightmare, in a room she didn't recognize, gasping and wheezing for air as her lungs burnt a hole in her chest. For a moment she felt like she was back out on the battlefield, it hurt so horribly. She felt so out of control of herself that she may as well have been under Mallus’s control again, and the sheer hoarseness of her hacking nearly had her feverish self believing as such, especially after such a horrific and nonsensical nightmare. Was she back at the Time Bureau? Held hostage by the Legends? Or simply being tortured in Hell? For what seemed like an eternity, she couldn't tell.

Ironically, it was a taste of her own medicine. Was this what her victims felt like when they were trapped under her magical chokehold? It certainly felt like there was a pressure on her neck, and the aching that came from it only seeped out from where she’d usually be getting air with no problem. Is that what she'd done to deserve this? No doubt she was turning pale and weak like all the people she'd watched crumble under her without a hint of remorse. If only they knew how guilty she felt now as she screwed her eyes shut in an attempt to not start crying from the stabbing pain that was still there even as her wheezing fit subsided. How long did she lie like that, yet to take in the room around her, on the edge of tears? She didn't know. The only thing that prompted her to open her eyes was the scuffling sound of footsteps, and of course, she immediately thought she was in danger, but she knew she had no energy to fight back if she was.

“Nora?”

Mona was standing in the doorway, looking at Nora with concern in her eyes. The footsteps had been hers. As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, Nora knew she was being spoken to but still blanked on every word in the English language, let alone how to form the words. For some reason, though, Mona was incredibly patient. She always was, even when Nora swore she wasn’t going to end up befriending her out of desperation for human connection. She had told herself time and time again, _it’s easier to not look forward to having anything, let alone people who love you._ But Mona was different. She always was.

Finally, Nora slurred something out, the sheer pain of speaking enough to denote the nerves in her voice that would've left her even more embarrassed had she been a state of mind to comprehend it. Of course, it was a question. She'd had so many questions. "Where am I?"

She sounded like Mallus. She sounded like she had when Mallus took control of her. And it hurt. It hurt just like it used to. So she panicked, rolling over on the bed the best she could so Mona couldn't sense her fear, holding back the second coughing fit caused by this minimal effort so she didn't need to worry too much.

"You're in my bedroom," Mona stated, surprisingly non-judgemental about the simple answer. "You fell asleep during book club last night," she added as a gentle reminder.

"Shit," Nora commented quickly, trying this time to ignore how she sounded and that it hurt to speak. "Sorry."

"No, don't be," Mona insisted. "Really, it isn't any trouble.

Nora meant to say something more but suddenly couldn't hold back the ever-growing tickle in her throat. Mona waited until she was no longer gasping for air all over again to speak once more. "You're worse off than I imagined," she pointed out, mostly to herself, before stepping into the room, trying to get Nora to look her in the eyes.

Another hoarse, mucus-filled cough came from Nora before she grumbled something gruff and practically incoherent and cringed at her voice again, this time unable to hide it from Mona.

“Does it hurt to speak?” Mona questioned when she saw this.

Nora only nodded, attempting to swallow the lump of pain in her throat only to realize she couldn't breathe when she swallowed. Cue another painful cough. It was a broken record.

“I'm so sorry,” she reiterated, with her chest heaving to get air in her lungs.

“I already told you, don't apologize,” Mona countered.

Nora had to restrain herself from apologizing for apologizing, and upon hearing no third apology, Mona went on to ask her a question. “What's bothering you?”

“It hurts,” Nora managed to choke out, for a moment blinded to everything but the pain that stabbed her chest.

“Okay. Where exactly does it hurt?”

“I can't breathe,” she finally mustered after a shaky exhale, seeming to ignore Mona’s later inquiry. “It hurts,” she repeated.

Concerned, Mona bit her lip. It was nothing like her...friend... to admit to being in pain. Especially not to the point where she couldn't focus on anything else.

“Oh my God, you're on fire,” Mona muttered under her breath.

She had meant to say something that might comfort Nora instead of worrying her more, but she was radiating so much heat that the observation slipped out thoughtlessly. Obviously though, Nora’s instinct was to panic. When she was better off she wouldn't nearly show emotion this much, and she still felt guilty for taking up Mona’s time right then, but she couldn't recall ever being this sick in her life; barely even when she last had just a cold, so she supposed this was an okay response to have. Her eyes widened ever-so-slightly at Mona's comment, but before she could put forth the effort to try and get something else past the barrier that was best described as brain fog, Mona responded to that subtle reaction, though Nora couldn't exactly tell if the next statement was directed at her.

"Don't worry; I've got a whole survival kit!"

She was a bit too enthusiastic about it. Anyone in Nora's position could've told you that, but sometimes she was too enthusiastic for Nora to begin with. To the point that she often couldn't comprehend the relenting belief in the world around her. In Mona's defense, there's a massive difference between your parents wanting you to go to law school compared to your mother dying and your father involving you in a cult that made you the vessel of a demon. That being said, it was one of the many things Nora loved about the young woman who was arguably her only friend, and sometimes she wished she could have that outlook. But not now, as she bolted out of the bedroom far too quickly, her bare feet hitting the carpet quietly, but in a way that tormented Nora's clogged up ears, as she felt it in the floor.

Of course, it was at that exact moment that Nora's body decided to switch from sweat dripping down her forehead to chills racking the entirety of it. And she didn't quite know how long she was lying there cold either. It felt like time was moving around her rather than her moving alongside it, or within it. She'd time-traveled plenty before, but not even then did the passage of time feel so...abstract. And the only thing that could pull her from that sinkhole was a distraction. She figured it couldn't have been too long, because eventually, Mona wandered back into the room, arms full of various objects. She quickly set them on the nightstand next to the side of the bed Nora was lying on as she continued to shiver. She was surprised all of it could fit on the nightstand, with a lamp and a small pile of books already lying on the table. She let out a short exhale upon this, half-smiling as Mona sat down on the edge of the bed, very quickly explaining what everything was as Nora furrowed her eyebrows, barely processing any of it. 

This time Mona didn't seem to notice how she was moving too fast for Nora to keep up, and the next thing she could process she was wondering how she could be chilled to the bone and still told her temperature was 102. A questionable amount of time later and she was being handed a water bottle and told to drink it slowly. She looked between the plastic bottle, that was dripping with condensation after fogging up from staying in the refrigerator for who knows how long, and Mona, who didn't seem to comprehend that whenever she was forced to swallow down the thick mucus lining the back of her throat, it felt like sand was being dumped into her mouth. It was hard to verbalize that without the feeling being much worse than sand, so she just shook her head and pushed the bottle away to the best of her ability. In doing this, her shaking hand felt just how cold it was, sending a jolt of additional shivers through her body at a ridiculous speed, the sensation enough to form a pit in her stomach. She supposed she hadn't noticed her whole body jolt at the cold as well because suddenly Mona was hovering even closer to her.

“Hey, it's okay. You're okay,” Mona reminded, remaining surprisingly gentle towards Nora considering everything she'd done in the past as she brushed her hand against the suddenly helpless woman's forearm.

For a moment, Nora didn't say anything, overtaken by the cold and everything it had done to her. She just leaned into Mona’s touch with whatever energy she could muster, causing Mona to chuckle softly at her.

“I never took Nora Darhk for a cuddle-bug,” she joked.

Nora would usually tell her to shut up and add a playful slap for good measure but today an eye-roll had to suffice.

“I'm not mad about it though.”

Finally accepting that talking was a stupid endeavor, Nora nodded, trying to convey that was obvious even to her lagging brain. They’d gotten a bit more affectionate than your average gal pals in the past and obviously were both interested in a romantic relationship with one another but never made anything official with the sole reason being that first and foremost that Mona wanted Nora to feel comfortable. Nora argued that she didn't deserve forgiveness for anything she'd caused, but to Mona, she was a person. She had done wrong but she had been hurting, and while that didn't make it okay, she was putting in the effort to pay for what she’d done, though her wounds were still wide open. She'd been so focused on trying to be better that she'd forgotten about herself. She'd been ignoring the nightmares that, when occasionally described to Mona on a really bad morning afterward, made her realize that Nora had never had a normal life. She'd never known most of the things Mona had taken for granted. In that sense Nora was like some strange cross between a war veteran and a baby animal, having seen things that no one should have to see while having no concept of the world she was returning to. This made her every new step out of her comfort zone something that was extremely cautious, and Mona wanted to make sure she felt somewhat adjusted to a more typical life before pushing her even further out of that comfort zone with the idea of a relationship.

“I can stay,” Mona finally muttered sheepishly. Nora just looked at her so she continued, fiddling with her hands. “Only if you want me to, but I figured I'd keep you warm.”

Nora nodded again, this time seeming a bit more eager, though the second she realized how desperate she looked, she looked away bashfully and made Mona laugh.

“I want to, you dork, that's why I asked.”

Mona made herself comfortable in a spot next to Nora, who was still curled up into a ball. Mona didn't make her change directions again, knowing that would only put her in more pain, but she did help her straighten out so she could wrap her hands around her chest and spoon her despite being the shorter of the pair. Nora had felt Mona’s skin against hers before, and it was always enough to send a shiver down her spine. Today it was the opposite. Mona’s skin was soft, her hands were as gentle as her words and she was beginning to seem like maybe she would be the one person that wouldn't leave Nora the second there was nothing she could gain in return from her. Everyone in Nora’s life had used her for something or another, even her father, as he let her bear the brunt of a demon until the last possible second, and no one on the outside of it all dared to help her, all thinking she was deranged or beyond saving. But not Mona. Mona thought she was deserving of this.Whatever it was, Nora didn't really know. In the past when things got bad she'd be locked up, but today she got this. She was filled with that content kind of exhaustion again as she coughed weakly into her elbow. Mona didn't say anything for a moment, just running her hands through Nora's hair, making her now heavy eyes shut for a second, nearly impossible to open again. Mona just hummed gently at this and reached over to grab a book she'd read a thousand times before. Good thinking, because in hardly any time at all Nora had passed out again.

She never wanted to wake up. It was easier to be asleep. But at the same time, she was glad that ringtone startled her because waking up in Mona’s arms was the best thing that ever happened to her. And when she woke up this second time, there was no panic over the pain still stabbing her chest.

“I'm getting a call from the Waverider,” Mona whispered when Nora stirred, still stroking her hair as though she'd fallen into a rhythm. “Nothing to worry about.”

Nora hummed in acknowledgment. She'd nearly forgotten that it hurt to speak still, but thankfully after only 10 seconds since she'd woken up a second time that day, she was still half-stuck in the web that was unconsciousness, making linguistics impossible from the get-go, even without her throat being a cheese grater. She attempted to blink away the sleep in her eyes but when that quickly became a fruitless endeavor she just shoved her face into the crook of Mona’s neck.

Mona smiled sympathetically. “Would you rather not be on camera?”

She felt Nora nod before readjusting to make sure she couldn't be seen in the shot. Not even by an overly sassy supercomputer AI on a futuristic timeship from 2166. That was a difficult adjustment to make with Nora still clung to her and madly shivering, but she made it work, thankfully before the call would be presumed to have been ignored or not noticed at all.

“Hey, guys.” When Ava and Sara came up on the other end, it was always a relief to Mona to see them unscathed by a mission, or the lack of privacy... _or_ the fact that there was only one bathroom on a vessel that was built to hold seven or eight people. 

That still baffled Mona. With all that future technology you can only make one bathroom fit. Hell, when she imagined 2166, that was not a future she wanted for her great-great-great-grandchildren. It was probably more greats away than just three after a century and a half, but neither of these things were relevant. Mona just had to remember to get out of her head sometimes.

“Mona, hey!” Sara attempted to remain enthusiastic but it was clear there was something on her mind.

Thankfully for these circumstances, but very few others, Ava had a difficult time understanding social cues, and immediately went to her instincts of keeping things moving. “Alright, let's cut the fluff. The only reason we're calling is because Ray heard us talking about last night and practically begged to know how Nora is, so we promised we'd do it in the morning.

Nora bit back a groan because she really didn't want to be in a conversation right now. Her half-awake-ness was beginning to fade, and with it, the pressure and pain that squeezed her lungs earlier in the day was coming back full force. She was sure Ray was great but at times he overstepped boundaries with just caring a little too much. And that was hard for Nora at times, because sometimes he seemed to assume she knew about what he considered to be a mundane, normal life when she certainly didn't. Everything Ray thought was normal was almost entirely new to Nora, making some of the things he'd suggested feel like horrifying leaps of faith she wasn't prepared for.

“She's about as good as she can be right now,” Nora was glad Mona didn't go into detail or be any less vague on the matter. “And I’m fine too if that matters at all to you guys. Not dying yet!”

Sara’s eyes widened as if she were about to make a joke about dying more than once. Ava pursed her lips as she remembered you probably shouldn't joke about how everyone is constantly getting closer to death with every passing second if you want to appear stable enough to be running a high-profile government agency.

“Good to hear, and sorry we couldn't be more helpful,” Sara finally told Mona, deciding not to continue on the death conversation.

Nora thought for a moment about what this morning would be like with Sara and Ava there and one word came to her mind. Loud.

“It's fine,” Mona told them, affirming to Nora she really didn't care at all about the state she was in. “You guys were a bit tipsier than me, and also it's kind of your job to fix history on top of how the Legends shouldn't be unsupervised.”

They both laughed.

“Gideon's a fine babysitter,” Sara offered.

“Is she, babe?” Ava questioned, turning to her girlfriend.

“I’ll leave you guys to that debate,” Mona told them. “I’m gonna go.”

When the holographic video feed of Mona disappeared, Sara suggested something else. “How about a different debate: how much longer until they get together?”

"I'm not making another bet."

"C'mooon," Sara begged.

Ava just kissed her in the hopes it might distract her.

Meanwhile, Mona disconnected from the call and turned all her attention back to Nora. If the pair she had just hung up on could see that they’d call it a suspicious parallel, but Sara and Ava’s continuous games of “Will They, Won't They” with other couples after sorting out their own was the last thing Mona wanted to think about. There were more important matters to worry over.

“Hey, she whispered to Nora, who was still attaching herself to Mona's chest. “Feeling any better?”

Nora just let out a small groan in response, but even that was enough to get her to pull herself away from Mona in a burst of energy only caused by adrenaline as she started to cough uncontrollably once again. This lasted for long enough that for a moment Mona blanked on what to do about it. She shuddered a bit when she realized just how much this compared to John’s sped up lung cancer incident, as dramatically retold by Gary to her. At least this was much less gory, and if Nora had coughed up any blood at all, she was great at concealing it.

Finally, she fell silent, trembling from the effort of trying to breathe, but still looking at Mona like she was about to apologize and then send herself spiraling all over again. She didn't have to say anything for Mona to get the message.

“You're gonna be okay, Nora. I can tell you're probably scared right now but I swear I'm not going anywhere.”

The next breath Nora managed was shaky, easily disguised as being no different from the rest from the day. There was no response beyond that so Mona continued. “I really think it would help you calm down if you had some medicine...Maybe something to eat? If that's okay?” 

There was no reason to argue with that, So some successfully swallowed pills later and Nora went hot again before they kicked in, distancing herself from Mona before she let her resume running her fingers through her hair. Even as the pain went away there was still a lump in her throat. She attempted to swallow it down but it only rose further and suddenly a sob bubbled over and she lost control of herself.

She was immediately met with a response to this. “What happened?”

Now able to speak without her vocal chords being stabbed, she confessed, “I can't remember when I was last treated like this.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “I mean...you're acting like I'm a person and not totally deranged.”

“Cause you're not deranged at all,” Mona answered. “You work so hard to prove you’re worthy of love...here it is.” 

If Nora could’ve gone paler, she would have. “Did you just tell me you love me?”

“Can we talk about that when you're not sick?” A simple request Nora happily complied with when followed by “You need your rest.”

As Nora found herself falling back asleep, Mona stood from the bed and gently kissed her burning forehead, making her silently wish as she drifted off that she'd do that more often. Needless to say and good for Sara, it wasn't long at all until they got together.


End file.
